Genetics Department Seminar Series: "Daddy Issues: Effects of Paternal Environments on Offspring Health and Disease in Mammals"

Our lab has developed several models for transmission of epigenetic information through the male germline in mammals, exploring how paternal diets or drug exposures program metabolism and behavior in offspring. I will discuss our efforts to understand these systems mechanistically, focusing primarily on surprising features of the sperm RNA payload. Likely topics will include several strategies to systematically dissect functions for sperm RNAs in control of preimplantation development and gene regulation, new evidence for long-lasting metabolic effects programmed by individual RNAs, and a role for inter-tissue communication in the father in environmental programming of the sperm epigenome.